Jane Eyre by Charlotte

143 ‘a North-of-England spirit called a “Gytrash”’ – Interestingly, the Gytrash of legend often hinders and waylays solitary travellers, but sometimes it helps them – which is perhaps suggestive of the novel’s ambiguous treatment of Rochester. The great dog Jane soon sees is called Pilot, giving another twist to the sea-imagery of this section, and the description of the dog/Gytrash – ‘a lion-like creature with long hair and huge head’ – is perhaps suggestive of Rochester himself.

144 ‘You must just stand on one side’ – Rochester’s first words to Jane are a command not to interfere.

145 ‘He had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow’ – That this powerful, strong forbidding man, who has ‘considerable breadth of chest,’ has sprained his leg and it to some extent dependent on a slight eighteen year old girl is a symbolic prolepsis of how the relationship of these two characters will develop. Charlotte Brontë is also, of course, tapping into a perennial female fantasy – a fact which may be of some embarrassment to academic critics, but which has led, nonetheless, to vast sales figures for the author’s countless imitators.

145 ‘the frown, the roughness of the traveller, set me at my ease’ – Jane’s lack of fear for Rochester is intriguing. She admits that had he been pleasant with her, she would have withdrawn into shyness, but her character has been formed at the Reeds, where she grew used to invective and stern words. Rochester’s dismissive manner, paradoxically, has the effect of sparking Jane’s rebelliousness. Rather than issuing forth in a stand up row such as that which developed with Mrs Reed, however, this trait in Jane’s character creates, almost instantaneously, the verbal fencing and repartee that becomes a feature of her relationship with Rochester. She has found, quite unexpectedly, a man whom she can talk to.

146 ‘I made effort on effort, though in vain: meantime, I was mortally afraid of its trampling fore-feet’ – Jane’s attempt to catch hold of the horse are symbolic of her (initial) failure to secure Rochester as a husband.

146 ‘He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder, and leaning on me with some stress, limped to his horse’ – Symbolic of the way Rochester comes to depend emotionally on Jane, and also, perhaps, of the ‘heavy hand’ of fate that will bring her great sorrow.

147 ‘just hand me my whip’ – Jane is given the task of re-establishing Rochester’s masculine dominance.